Joe playing in Crown Fountain, Chicago, IL

My son Joe having a great time playing in Chicago's World Famous Crown Fountain in August 2007.
The fountain is made of two 50-foot high glass-block towers in a rectangular wading pool. Video images of the faces of 1000 different Chicagoans are projected at random on the facing sides of the towers.
- Each face appears for five minutes. At exactly 4:15, the mouth puckers and shoots out a stream of water like a gargoyle for 30 seconds. For the last 15 seconds the face grins.
- The artist originally wanted each face to be shown for 13 minutes.
- There are two versions of each face in the video projection: one for summer with the mouth puckering, and one without for the cold months.
- The face images were shot at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, with the subjects posing in a dentist's chair so the camera would not have to be adjusted.
- Each movie of a face represents only 80 seconds of real time, stretched digitally to fit the 5-minute running time.
- Two different faces are shown simultaneously on the opposite towers, and no face reappears within any 72-hour interval.
- Because of the number of faces involved in the video rotation, very few of the subjects have reported seeing themselves on the fountain.

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• landmark
• fountain
• chicago
• millenium
• park
• play